Nearly Bare.....

This is the walnut tree in our garden. My parents once had a village pub called exactly that, and guess what? It had a walnut tree in front of it! It's still there I think, although it was the victim of many an accident, including a Robin Reliant exploding underneath it. The walnut tree in our garden is hanging on to its last few leaves for now, but the garden is covered so you can guess what we will be mostly doing this weekend! It hasn't produced many walnuts this year though. According to English folklore, you are supposed to whack the trunk with a stick to produce a good crop the following year... a good job for stick boy!

We have had a crazy couple of weeks what with half term and the like. Our first lot of guests arrived on the Thursday of half term, in time to visit Halloween Tivoli on the Friday. They loved it and couldn't get over how many pumpkins there were, it was also much warmer than Halloween Tivoli last year which was a good thing, but it was sooo much busier... I don't think Halloween was that big in Denmark until recently, but (like the UK) it gets bigger each year, and Tivoli's marketing is obviously working! Our three year old was given some candyfloss which was nearly as big as him. After a few minutes he began to look like one of the X-men with a bright orange, very sticky sugar crust over his entire face and hands. A woman pushed passed us on her way out and got rid of most of it for me when she walked off with half of it stuck to the side of her coat. She was in too much of a rush for me to be able to tell her, so I expect she was really pleased to discover that later on! But luckily the small boy was completely oblivious to the fact that half of it had disappeared. Horrendous stuff!

On the Saturday we went to the Frilands for their last day before closing for the winter. They had a great festival in the form of a 17th/18th century carnival which was fantastic! The kids loved the "circus" and the pretend strong man and performers. At the end of the show, they announced that a "beautiful lady" was about to perform, out came a girl with a large blouse with fake arms attached. Her real arms (or rather elbows) formed her "boobs" under the blouse which she then moved about in time to music. The children all stood saucer-eyed at this, their faces were a picture. I would have taken a picture of them, but it definitely would have had camera shake as I was laughing too much. At the end of her performance, she leaned forward and produced two material boobs out of the front of her blouse. After she had left the stage, we asked our three year old what she had done. He said "she showed us her cakes..."!!! Bless!

Sunday we went for a long walk through the forest. Our friends couldn't get over the amazing autumn display we are enjoying at the moment. I don't remember last year being like this, it is pretty breathtaking, although rapidly disappearing in the wind...I don't know whether the bitterly cold winter had something to do with the amazing colours perhaps, but I love it! I don't think I could ever live somewhere that didn't enjoy a good autumn!

That afternoon, I had a text message, it simply said, "see you Friday!" I immediately knew who it was from - my father, a Yorkshireman of limited text words! Hence the lack of blog, for which I apologise, but we have been too busy gallavanting to Sweden (and various other places) where we drove down towards Ystad again, this time stopping at a tiny fishing port called Abbekås. When we got there we were flagging as it was past lunchtime, so we took a chance (it was Sweden after all!) on a small place there called Abbekås Hamnkrog for lunch. What a find! The owners are so friendly and welcoming and the food was wonderful! I had plaice with roasted beetroot in lemon and a beurre blanc. It was huge and delicious and I didn't have room for the potatoes. The children had authentic swedish meatballs made to a family recipe (with the nicest mashed potato I have ever had) with lingonberry jam, and my Husband and Dad both had plates of herring and smoked eel. This place is also a hotel, it's peaceful, the food is excellent and the staff act like you are their very first (and best) customers - what more could you ask for?

A couple more days to enjoy my Dad's company before he goes back home. I will update again shortly - honest!

Emma

Constant Sunshine (and Suffocating Heat)!

The weather decided for us that Breakfast at the beach was in order this morning! We made a hasty picnic (plus all important flask of tea), and left home just before 8.30. The light was beautiful, the temperature perfect and we had a lovely couple of hours before we left to go back home at 10.30, just as it was getting busy and too hot! The weather has been spectacular for the last two weeks, perfect for my in-laws who have actually returned to Florida with a tan! We managed to pack an awful lot in while they were here. The various trips of course included our favourite Frilands Museet,where the children learned how to spin wool and Tadci earned his picnic lugging them around in a wooden cart. Numerous picnics on the beach, followed by copious amounts of ice cream (and coke floats!), the obligatory Tivoli, and Sweden for a day where we searched out Swedish meatballs in Lund(and a giant in the vaults of the Cathedral - although we couldn't find him!), and stocked up on BBQ food at the supermarket! Then the grand castle tour, when we packed in three in a day,Krongborg slot (aka Elsinore - who also has another much more impressive giant in it's vaults, but we will visit him another day), Fredensborg, the Queen's summer residence where we explored the gardens (only open to the public in July - get off the grass!!), and Frederiksborg in Hillerod which is my favourite, it's stunningly beautiful and quite the wedding conveyor-belt at weekends. We also did a central Copenhagen canal boat trip which we haven't done before, it was lovely but the day was so stiflingly hot, I am looking forward to doing it again on a cooler day. My In-laws also very kindly babysat one evening, and as the weather was too warm to sit in a formal restaurant, we decided to be tourists for the evening and go to Tivoli, where we ate at Grøften, one of the oldest and most traditional restaurants in Tivoli, it's a bit of an institution. We dined on Danish asparagus and fjord rejer (tiny fresh water shrimp),

and shared a lovely bottle of La Motte Wine from Franschoek where we got married many moons ago, it was a great evening (later in the week we bought a tub of the tiny fjord rejer and made our guests work for their supper, although they are very fiddly to peel, the shrimps are really sweet,and only available for a couple of months over the summer so well worth trying if you can)! It's definitely a restaurant that's been added to our list of places to take guests, the food is good, and the atmosphere's great!

A quiet week at home awaits before we go to Skagen next weekend.